Thanksgiving 09

We spent Thanksgiving at Chris' great aunt and uncles home near Kings Dominion. We had a day full of shooting, rocket launching, food and family.

If you look closely you can see the ejected shell at around 1:00 above my head! Great Shots!
We then headed down to Corolla in the Outer Banks for a post Thanksgiving vacation with the Andresen's. We went to a great little aquarium, ate LOTS of amazing food, and did some great shopping.. Coach outlet???? I was able to pick out my Christmas present from Chris!



Tomorrow kicks off the 2 swim meets that are 4 days each. December 14 will be a day to look forward to. We will be here for Christmas Day and then we head to Indiana to spend time with my family and celebrate New Years.... look out 2010!

More pics from Tgiving (October)

Family Reunion

Chris and I just got back from our trip to Indiana. I went to Lafayette on Wednesday and Chris joined me in New Castle on Friday. We ate a lot, visited with a lot of family and tried to stay warm. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the weekend.

Uncle Chris and Emily

Uncle Dan and Emily

Uncle Chris and Emily

Falkor and Emily (look close - Emily has her arm on Falkor.. too cute)

Holding Falkor's paw

October already?

Where did time go?

Things have finally gotten back to normal after our quick trip to Indiana. Grandpa's service was beautiful and over 300 people came to the visitation. It was so nice to meet some of his friends that knew exactly who we were, but we weren't sure who they were. :) They would come over and introduce themselves and tell us how much Grandpa would brag about us.... especially Emily (of course). I can not brag enough about him! Grandpa was a Shriner and used to transport burn children to hospitals in Ohio and Kentucky. He was a FreeMason, and he served in World War II. He did so much in his 87 years, and I am so proud to call him my grandpa. He will be sooo missed.

Chris and I have been extremely busy. He is in school two nights a week, I am teaching for GMU twice a week plus my regular 40 hour job, and teaching swim lessons one day a week. He just started football again and with group projects we are lucky to see each other on the weekends. This is actually my last free weekend, next weekend starts the meet season. We will be participating in the Human Society walk in DC next Saturday, and then I leave Wednesday the 14th to go to Indiana and Chris joins me on the 16th. The following weekend (10/25) is our ANNIVERSARY... wow, 1 year! November is a busy month too... a wedding and Thanksgiving!

Our sweet sweet neighbor Kim is moving to Virginia Beach, so we are desperately looking a dog sitter that loves Chase as much as she did. One of my lifeguards is going to be watching her for the second time when we leave in October, but we have 2 more trips in November that are stressing us out a little bit. I am an anti-boarding person because of a dog that I used to have came back from being boarded and was never the same. Chase is almost 7, and has never been boarded, so I don't want to try that out! I am currently looking at some "open" kennels in which all the dogs play in a large area all day and then sleep in rooms together at night. However, I am afraid that she might not pass the "personality test" because of her traumatic experience (she got attacked by two larger dogs and was bitten) and since then she is fearful of larger dogs. We will have to try it out and see if she passes.

Till next time!

Grandpa is with his love

Grandpa Barber passed away early this morning, most likely in his sleep. My phone rang around 158am, and I looked at the caller id and braced myself as I said hello. It was my parents, and I knew what was coming. I wasn't prepared, I knew it could happen, but I didn't think this soon. Chris and I just purchased our tickets to Indiana for an October trip, and I kept telling Grandpa that I would see him soon, but I never wished it was this soon.

I laid awake until 5am and then decided to just get up and go to work. I showered, and then laid down again. I finally fell asleep, but the whole time I dreamt about what was going on.

Grandpa LOVED his granddaughters. He finally got three boys officially last month, and a cherry on the top was the birth of baby Emily in May, making him a Great Grandpa. He was onry, fiesty, stubborn, whitty, smart, and mostly SOOO full of love. Losing someone so close and so important in my life is not easy and I am definitely having a hard time dealing with it. Chris and I are leaving in the morning, and I am bracing myself for what lays ahead for all of us. I am so happy that he can finally be with his one true love, and they can be together again, hopefully keeping a good eye on all of us.

If you read this, I just ask that you keep us in your thoughts and pray that we find peace in all of this.

Grandpa

Grandpa had his first round of chemo last Thursday and so far so good. They don't think he was able to battle the congestive heart failure/double pneumonia without the chemo. In other words, they thought the cancer wasn't letting his other areas heal, so they gave him the chemo. He is still eating, but very little, on oxygen 100% of the time, and still is doing breathing treatments. We don't see an end to the hospital stay at the moment, but he was able to enjoy visitors including little Emily.

and because I can't resist her sweet lil face... more pictures of Emily at Amandan's Wedding Reception

Vegas Baby and Grandpa Update

@ the Bellagio

Lucky Larry's Lobster Mania

M & M world... good thing dad was there to help!

The Girls

The Boys

@ our $3.95 breakfast... it was good!

New York, New York

We are back from Vegas, but not back with extra money. After losing a little we decided it wasn't THAT much fun to lose money and stopped after two days of trying.

We arrived on Tuesday morning and hung out at the pool and lazy river. We had dinner at Fiamma Trattoria with everyone there for the wedding. I think there were over 20 people. On Wednesday we traveled to The Little White Chapel where we met Elvis and Amanda and Dan got hitched. Elvis liked dad a lot and as you can see by the pictures, dad enjoyed him as well.
Thursday we toured multiple hotels, saw a show at the MGM called Crazy Horse, and it was horrible.... so bad that Amanda and Dan walked out! We all left on Friday and headed home. (more pictures to come...the computer was slow)

There are a lot of great pictures on Facebook too...especially from the professional photographer.

Grandpa Barber
His cancer is back.... unfortunately that means that he will have to start chemo. He had a port implanted Thursday (to receive the chemo), has his pacemaker checked on on Monday, and starts his first round of Chemo next Thursday. For those that read this, keep him in your prayers. I have never known him without hair, so that alone is too hard to take. We hope the chemo works or at least helps him feel better. He is only 5'2 and 126 pounds at the moment, and shrinking daily because the smell of food makes him sick. The dr's have given him a pill to help with the smell of the food and has allowed him to eat more than before.
This morning he was rushed to the hospital because he couldn't breathe... I am so thankful that Amanda and Mom are with him!

Bobby McKey's night out

Last night we had an amazing night out at Bobby McKey's dueling piano bar... Jim and Brittanie were in town from Texas...we miss them sooo much!! oh, and yes, I cut all my hair off!!

Brittanie took this picture... Captain Morgan, although he is drinking Bud Light!

Jim and Brittanie

Nate and Chris

Pictures....

Here is a link to pictures of the National Aquarium in Baltimore and of the National Cathedral in Washington DC.
http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/welcome.sfly?fid=ee435b83bd32d0bf&sid=8BaM27Ju3bNgi

I hope that works.

Weekend projects:

We FINALLY removed the stump... no wonder they want to charge you an arm and a leg to remove them... it is hard work. We were able to chase 90% of the roots too and take it all to the dump on Saturday. (560 lbs worth of it) We also took the last of the white rocks, and old toilet and some random things in the back yard. The transformation is amazing. This coming weekend is dedicated to getting it back to normal... to much dirt/mud for Chase to bring in.

Working hard to cut it free!

Finally... it came out!!

The STUMP
The Hole

I found this rug at LLBean... how cute is that??? It fits perfectly on the landing going down to the basement.... and looks very very similar to Chase-r!

We also had the privilege to dog sit for Sara and Ben. Rocky is a border collie/basset hound mix that is about to turn one year old. Chase and Rocky had a great time and Chase shared her bed with him. We all had a fun time.

One one more week of work till Vegas BABY!!! We are definitely getting super excited for the wedding and can't wait to see all of our family!!

Congratulations Chris!

On TOP of the World!!

Nominated, interviewed and now selected as a Byrce Harlow Fellow for the 09-10 academic year!!!

**Your professional, academic, and leadership achievements, combined with your strong interest in a career in advocacy are extremely impressive. Being awarded the Bryce Harlow Fellowship truly demonstrates your achievements as well as your commitment to integrity in professional advocacy. It is a pleasure to be able to assist you in pursuing you graduate degree with this award**

From Mom and Dad Barber-
"We all recognize your efforts in completing your degree work for your Masters Program and we are all especially pleased that others (Bryce Harlow Fellowship) have also recognized your education, avocation, and continued efforts to improve yourself. Not only are we excited and pleased we now have new information to spread to our friends as we 'gush' about our family and loved ones endeavors."

Chase's boo boo and house updates!

Mom, Dad and Grandma have been here since last Saturday, and no, I didn't make them work the whole week. We actually treated them to the Baltimore Aquarium on Monday for all their hard work. We visited the American History Museum and the National Cathedral.
As for updates:
-new toilet upstairs (the upstairs toilet replaced the basement toilet)
-removal of the holly bush stumps
-removal of Cherry Blossom roots... Chris even used a mattock to bust up the stump and roots.
and most important:
-NEW floors and baseboard in the living room

As for Chase's boo boo... she snagged her dew claw on some of the roots we removed. She ran inside for a treat and blood was dripping everywhere. When we inspected it closely, we realized that she had split her nail up/down. I guess she didn't realize that we had already spent enough money at Lowe's this week and for the new floor, so we had to take her to the vet for a 45 minute "surgery". She has a bandage for 3-5 days to cover the partial removal of her claw and 3 weeks of antibiotics.


I will post more pictures of our trips soon!

Emily

I have returned home and am back to work after being in Chicago for four days. Emily is sooo cute and even more beautiful in person. Mom, Dad, Amanda and Dan all came up to see me...I am sure it was Emily, but they told me it was to see me too. We had a great time, Jessica and Eric received a Wii for their birthdays, so we played it and made fun of each other. We enjoyed Flat Top Grille and Giordano's Pizza, very yummy! We went down to Navy Pier, but Emily didn't think that was a good idea, so after walking around, we left. More pictures of that to come.

Camel no more

My friends in high school used to call me a camel when we would eat out together. I drank sooo much water.. all the time. (Camels drink large amounts of water - up to 20 gallons at a time.) I gave up soda when I was 16, never drank coffee, so it came down to water and milk.

Well, things have changed. I "forget" to drink throughout the day and it has finally caught up to me in the form of kidney stones. Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of passing a kidney stone. Let's just say, the nurse said many women would rather give birth again than to pass a kidney stone. The emergency room was a nice place to spend a Friday night, but not fun. After following up with an Urologist, I found out that I had a least six more stones forming in my kidneys. Yesterday I had lithotripsy done on my left side, and a followup appointment will determine if I had to have it done on my right side. At this exact moment I have downed 24 ounces of water, which is about 20 ounces more than I am acustomed to.

The lithotripsy procedure feels like someone has kicked you in the back with a steel toe boot on. I am bruised, sore, tired, and am praying that this is the last time I have to deal with something like this. Moral to the story... drink water, lots of it!